Somalia

Peter Casaer/MSF

On 29 May 2016 a high level Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) delegation visited Mogadishu, Somalia, with the aim of having an open dialogue with the Somalia Government and exploring the conditions and commitments that might allow MSF’s future return to Somalia.

During this visit, MSF met with the Prime Minister of Somalia and with the Presidents of Puntland and South West State. Further appointments were made to meet with other regional leaders. MSF has not decided on a re-engagement in Somalia as yet, and will take an informed decision after talking to all actors and conducting further assessments and negotiations over the next couple of months.

Since then, MSF has continuously monitored the humanitarian situation in the country and assessed whether conditions have evolved sufficiently to allow MSF to operate in a manner that would ensure the safety of our teams on the ground as well as respect for our patients and health facilities.

In August 2013, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) closed all of its projects in Somalia after 22 years of continuous operations.

Leaving Somalia was an extremely difficult decision to make. A series of violent attacks on MSF personnel took place with the tacit acceptance – or active complicity – of armed groups and civilian authorities. The minimal conditions necessary for operations were not respected, and hence MSF ceased supporting health facilities in Somalia by mid-September 2013, handing them over to government entities and humanitarian organisations where possible.

Although the humanitarian situation has improved since the nutritional crisis of 2011, the ongoing conflict in the south-central regions, together with natural disasters and seasonal outbreaks of disease, put huge strains on the weak healthcare system. In many parts of Somalia, access to healthcare is extremely limited and mortality rates for pregnant women and young children are among the highest in the world. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis remain displaced inside the country and in refugee camps across Somalia’s borders, living a precarious existence exposed to many forms of violence and extortion.

MSF did not want to leave Somalia but was left with little choice, and continues to support Somali refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen.

In and around Mogadishu
Nine kilometres northwest of Mogadishu, in Dayniile, MSF supported a 60-bed hospital with an emergency room, operating theatre, intensive care unit, paediatric unit, feeding centre and maternity facilities. The team performed 646 surgical procedures and over 8,272 consultations in 2013.

MSF’s 40-bed hospital in the Jaziira district of Mogadishu, which mostly catered to displaced populations, carried out some 25,700 consultations and 2,200 hospital admissions this year, and treated over 330 severely malnourished children.

To improve access to quality basic and specialist healthcare for children, MSF ran the only paediatric hospital in Mogadishu, in Hamar Weyne. The hospital had isolation wards for children suffering from measles or acute watery diarrhoea and a nutrition centre that treated 3,800 children between January and August.